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Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2001 22:43:45 -0500
From: Christopher Faylor <cgf AT redhat DOT com>
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: New symlinks.
Message-ID: <20010301224345.B7391@redhat.com>
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In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.0.20010301191745.02442160@mailhost>; from munch@powertv.com on Thu, Mar 01, 2001 at 07:30:33PM -0800

On Thu, Mar 01, 2001 at 07:30:33PM -0800, John Paulson wrote:
>wrt autoconf vs interactive use, if you are doing autoconf you are most
>likely a sufficiently advanced guru that working around the missing
>extensions is just another pain-in-the-butt.  IMHO, making the
>interactive user happy is more important than making autoconf
>developers happy.  I say this because there's more traffic from users
>than from package maintainers...

Will people get off this "sufficiently advanced" preoccupation?  It is
not going to fly.  The autoconf list has more than its share of people
with cygwin problems already.

I really can't believe that anyone is positing superiority of one class
of users (windows users, autoconf users, "developers") as an argument
for not worrying about potential confusion.  There is no innate IQ
attached to any field of human endeavor.

Again, just read the Cygwin mailing list.  Every person on this mailing
list is, by default, a Windows user.  There's plenty of confusion about
standard windows matters (e.g.  "Why can't I create a file named
aux.foo").  You'll see developers here who can't figure out simple C
problems.  And, the autoconf mailing list has autoconf developers who
have all manner of problems.  There is plenty of confusion to go around.

There may be incredibly good reasons for using the .lnk symlinks but
you can't sweep potential problems under the rug by assuming that people
will be intelligent enough to work around them.  That is a flawed
argument.  We don't want to put obstacles in in anyone's paths, and we
especially don't want to impact the people who are ACTUALLY DOING WORK
on porting things to Cygwin.  Those are the people that I want to impact
the least.  They are infinitely more valuable than the normal cygwin
mailing list user.

I am *especially* concerned about the autoconf developers who are
constantly trying to work around problems like Cygwin's handling of
.exe.  I would hate to suddenly throw them a curve with some new
Cygwin behavior.  I'm certain that they wouldn't appreciate it.

Again, I don't know that the .lnk behavior will have any impact
on autoconf at all.  We just shouldn't assume that it will be
effortlessly accomodated if there is a problem.

cgf

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